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Sharks Ahoy

The day began like all the others. A cloudless sky, calm seas, miles of visibility. The camera batteries fully charged. My face globed sunscreen white. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the backpack. The small plastic shark mascot biting through my yellow anorak pocket. I was tempting fate. Heading out again on a shark tagging trip from Chatham. The boats have changed, but would my luck? Three years of trying, I had yet to be on a trip that saw great white sharks. I could see the apprehension on the crew. It was the Cape Cod Times photographer again who puts a jinx on the trip. I moved the plastic shark into the backpack and we headed out to sea.

The shark gods finally yielded. No sooner had we gotten under way then the spotter plane had a location off Monomoy. Arrived at the GPS spot, nothing showing. I was up top with the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy’s Ben Wigren. I saw nothing, he spotted the shark. The game was on, my curse reversed. The water was shallow, ten feet. Boat captain John King kept the bow on the shark. I had lugged all the telephotos. Now I was shooting a 12 foot shark with a wide angle. Clear water visibility and the shark just under the surface. So this is what I had been missing for three years.

We were just getting warmed up. By day’s end we had spotted seven different sharks and state shark expert Greg Skomal had tagged two of the animals. Photos can’t do justice to the experience of viewing these sharks from just feet away. They are big but they can move. My vision of these was still clouded by the movie world. Tag the shark and it rears around and charges the boat, leaping into the air, teeth blazing. It is hard not to think of the shark movies as we head back to the fish pier. Past the beaches full of late summer bathers or paddle boarders out in the shallow water. The ocean is probably one of the last places we haven’t been able to tame. That is a good thing. Keep it in mind when you go for a swim. As for the plastic shark mascot. It has officially retired to the windowsill at home.

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